The present invention relates generally to chewing gum products and syrups used to make chewing gum products. More specifically, the present invention relates to chewing gum compositions including sorbitol used to make pellet gum.
It is known to include polyols, such as sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, and other hydrogenated oligosaccharides, in chewing gum products. Polyols can be used in chewing gum as a “sugar substitute.” These sugar substitutes have the advantage that they are not fermented in the mouth of the consumer to form products that can attack dental enamel. Therefore, sorbitol, as well as other polyols, are generally used in sugarless products. Additionally, sorbitol can be used as a bulking agent.
Sorbitol can be provided in chewing gum in its crystalline form. It is believed that crystalline sorbitol currently accounts for approximately 50% of typical sugarfree chewing gum formulations. Unfortunately, crystalline sorbitol is costly. Although it would be desirable to have a replacement for crystalline sorbitol, heretofore, such possible replacements were not as effective, created product stability problems, created processability issues, were even more expensive than crystalline sorbitol, and/or could not be used with certain formulations.
In this regard, aqueous sorbitol has been explored for use in chewing gum. Sorbitol in an aqueous solution is a less expensive alternative, on a dry basis, than crystalline sorb itol. Unfortunately, the use of aqueous sorb itol in chewing gum at levels above 15% can create problems with respect to product stability. Likewise, the use of aqueous sorbitol at levels above 15% can also create processability problems. This is due, it is believed, to the water content contained in the aqueous sorbitol.
Additionally, there are problems with respect to at least certain chewing gum formulations when using sorbitol in an aqueous solution. Because typical aqueous sorbitol solutions contain about 30% water, the water added with the sorbitol is detrimental to moisture sensitive ingredients when sorbitol solution is provided at high levels in chewing gum. A further difficulty with aqueous sorbitol is that it readily crystallizes and causes the gum to become brittle. While hydrogenated starch hydrolysate (HSH), such as Lycasin brand HSH from Roquette, contains a small amount of sorb itol, it does not provide a significant amount of sorb itol such that HSH can be substituted for crystalline sorbitol. It is believed that Lycasin brand HSH contains, on a dry basis, about 6% sorbitol, about 52% maltitol and about 42% of oligosaccharides having a degree of polymerization (“DP”) of 3 or greater.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,936 discloses a unique syrup composition containing aqueous sorbitol, a plasticizer agent, and an anticrystallizing agent. This composition was designed to use aqueous sorbitol as a less expensive form of sorbitol, but overcoming the foregoing problems. While this syrup was successfully used in chewing gum compositions used to make stick forms of chewing gum products, its use in other forms, particularly coated pellet gum, at a level great enough to be economically advantageous, was not satisfactory.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0234648 discloses a syrup containing sorbitol, a plasticizing agent and HSH, and its use in chewing gum. The plasticizing agent is selected from glycerin, propylene glycol and mixtures thereof. While this syrup was found useful because it could be used to make both stick and coated pellet gum products, the gum pellets made from compositions containing this syrup have been found to have a coating that does not stay as hard and crunchy as desired over a long shelf life. Also, products made with this syrup develop cracks during their shelf life.
While other gum compositions can be used to form pellets that have a coating that stays crunchy over a long period of time, they do not use the low cost form of sorbitol. Thus it would be advantageous if a syrup made with the low cost form of sorbitol could be developed that could be used in chewing gum compositions that could then be made into pellet products with a crunchy shell that did not get soft over time. There is therefore a need for a sugarless syrup that allows sorbitol in a non-crystalline state to be added to a chewing gum formulation that can be made into coated gum pellets that does not cause the coating on the pellets to get soft over a desirably long shelf life.